1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a system for updating, from a remote location, data stored on an optical data storage device.
2. Description of Related Art
In a number of industries, such as the automobile and aircraft industries, extensive technical manuals containing graphical and/or alphanumeric data are kept at a number of widely-spread locations. As an example, one can consider the spare parts departments of the many dealers supplying the vehicles of an automobile manufacturer. Each spare parts department will be provided with a batch of microfiches carrying exploded views of particular sections of each vehicle, together with the corresponding part numbers. It is essential that the microfiches be updated every time the manufacturer makes a significant change to the spare parts data.
At present, even if only a small proportion of the information stored on a microfiche is to be changed, a whole new microfiche must be sent to every dealer. A further problem then exists, in that the manufacturer has no way of checking that each dealer has received the updated information, and that the old microfiche has been destroyed.